Magic & Memory by A.L. Larsen

“Where was I the last time you saw me?”
    “We were in our motel room here in town. It was four days ago, a little after sunset.”
    “Four days? I’ve only been here for two, so two days are unaccounted for.” Alastair mused. Then he asked, “What was I doing?”
    “You were going to go out and patrol, but you promised to come back by ten so we could go see a movie.” Joey smiled then and said, “You think movies are a colossal waste of time, but once in a rare while you indulge me.”
    “And you wrote me a reminder,” Alastair said.
    “You remember?”
    “No, I found the note in my pocket. That’s how I knew my name.”
    “Ah. Anyway, you’d just taken a shower and were getting dressed, and I went in to take my shower. When I came out, you were gone. I noticed that you’d left without your shoes, which was odd. And then you never came back.”
    Alastair leaned back against the couch and closed his eyes, pressing a hand to his forehead. After a while he said, “Why am I one of a kind? Why aren’t there others like me?”
    “Well, normally nephilim and vampires are too busy chopping each other’s heads off to try to bring anyone over. They’re sworn enemies. Plus, their physiology is totally different, so it shouldn’t be possible to turn an angel, even a half-angel into a vampire. But Augustine had to try it. Experiments like that fascinate him, sick son of a bitch.” Joey shook his head.
    Then he continued, “Since his one success in creating you, he’s tried to turn nephilim into vampires a bunch more times. But the transformation always kills them. The change almost killed you, actually, from what I’ve been told. Apparently it’s sort of a miracle that you survived.”
    Sadness thinned out Alastair’s voice. “He keeps trying to make more like me? And they keep dying?”
    “Yeah. That’s part of the reason nephilim are close to extinction now. I mean, not that there were tons of them to begin with.”
    “And are there many vampires?” Alastair asked, his voice almost a whisper.
    “There are way too many of those bastards,” Joey sneered.
    “You don’t group yourself in with other vampires?” Lu chimed in from the far end of the sofa.
    “Nope.”
    “Any why is that, exactly?” she asked.
    Joey met her gaze. “From the very beginning, Alastair taught me to be different. He struggled to get me to hold on to my humanity, to not lose sight of what I used to be.” He shot a glance at Alastair. “And it’s a damn good thing you succeeded, too.”
    “Why is that?” Alastair asked him.
    “Cuz bro, if I’d turned out to be a typical vampire, you wouldn’t have hesitated to hunt me down and kill me. Like you do with all the rest of them.”
    The room was silent for a few moments after Joey spoke. Eventually Alastair asked quietly, “I kill other vampires?”
    “Well, yeah.”
    “So when you said I was heading out to patrol the night I disappeared, I was patrolling….”
    “For vampires to kill.”
    “And are there many vampires in this town?” Alastair asked, staring into the fire.
    Joey shrugged. “I kinda doubt it. It’s too small. It usually takes a hefty population base for vamps to live undetected. But you’re relentless that way. Wherever we are, you’re always hunting.” Then Joey added, “The town does seem to be lousy with werewolves though. Go figure.”
    Lu hoped he was kidding. She asked, “What were you two doing in Ashland, anyway?”
    “We got stuck here,” Joey explained. “We were driving from Seattle to San Francisco. It was just supposed to be one night, when snow closed the pass on Interstate 5 south of town. On that Sasquatch Summit, or whatever.”
    “Siskiyou Summit,” Lu corrected.
    “Yeah, that,” Joey nodded. He looked at Alastair. “But then you went running off. I still don’t know why you’d do that, or what could possibly wipe your memories. Well, unless….”
    Alastair focused sharply on Joey. “What?”
    “When we were in